Music / Jazz
Bristol’s week in jazz, January 7 – 13
Well it’s all done and dusted with the Festive Season and, thankfully, normal service is beginning to resume around the local jazz scene. It’s inevitably quiet, what with everyone likely to be a tad skint this month, but there’s plenty of lovely free stuff on offer and the ticketed stuff is pretty reasonable, too.
For instance the Bebop Club opens a new season with the saxophone-led Steve Mathers Quartet (Bebop Club, Friday 11), a celebration of the great Blue Note legacy, with Bath-born Steve (pictured top looking homeward) joined by highly-rated guitarist Martin Kolarides, Hammondmeister John-paul Gard (seen in the Ben Waghorn video below) and great drummer Billy Weir.
is needed now More than ever
More supersax action at The Fringe who open their new year programme with what has become a bit of tradition known as The Three Tenors (Wednesday 9). Naturally this is not a trio of operatic types but rather three accomplished players of the tenor saxophone, namely Ben Waghorn, Jake McMurchie and Nick Dover. Each is a strong player with some contrasting styles to offer and, with a splendid rhythm section behind them, it’s always a bit of an annual masterclass.
There’s two chances to catch The Play this week, first for free at The Bell in Bath (Monday 7) and secondly for a mere two quid at Leftbank (Saturday 12). This eclectic collaboration between Bartoune’s Seb and Tom, Dakhla’s Matt Brown and renowned composer Jools Scott is definitely worth the effort of getting out on a cold evening.
You can generally count on the Canteen for fab freeby action and this particularly good week offers a hat-trick of gigs starting with Oxford’s soulful Wandering Wires quartet (Wednesday 9) fronted by cool vocalist Olivia Williams. Then it’s the very straight ahead sound of the Jonny Bruce Organ Quartet (Thursday 10), with Jonny Henderson hitting the Hammond keyboard, swiftly followed by the equally groove-heavy Snazzback (Friday 11) who will also be airing the India chapter in their ever-unfolding Global Groove Experiment at Gallimaufry (Thursday 10).
And then there’s the Canteen’s sister venues – also free at the door – with No 1 Harbourside featuring the funk-meets-jazz and Nu Soul saxophone of James Morton (Saturday 12) while the Old Market Assembly hosts the launch of old-school vocal jazz and swing duo Peanut Shuffle Club’s debut album (Friday 11).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Rw6JmdBS8
Rounding things up – and still in the free zone, fiscally speaking – pianist Alex Veitch’s monthly session at Greenbank (Thursday 10) pays tribute to Esbjörn Svensson, probably the greatest figure in European piano jazz this century. It’s astonishingly been over a decade since Esbjörn’s tragically early death but the music of his EST trio remains an unrivalled milestone in accessible, intelligent jazz steeped in popular music influences. And, finally, there’s a similar fusion of inspirations afoot when improvising partners Paul Bradley and Emma Holbrook join forces as Athea (Tobacco Factory, Sunday 13). That’s a gig that is likely to be free in every sense of the word, too.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
